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The 2015 Wildfire Season Set an Ominous Record
United States
Annual acreage burned by wildfires in the U.S. since 1970. Image: Climate Central
The record acreage burned in 2015 underscores a pattern of an ever-lengthening wildfire season marked by more intense blazes both in Alaska and the West driven by rising temperature and snowpack melting earlier than it used to. In Alaska, wildfire season is 35 days longer than it was in the 1950s, according to a Climate Central analysis. The western U.S. has seen wildfire season stretch even longer with the season lasting 75 days longer than it did in the 1970s
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